


A Year of Maybe

by MaldaineD



Series: Winter Break:  A Danny Phantom Story [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 06:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12929508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaldaineD/pseuds/MaldaineD
Summary: Duality of identities is not only for those that call themselves heroes.  A near devastating injury leaves Dash Baxter wondering about what his future holds.  When he is invited to the Fentons' home for Christmas, he can't help but feel overwhelmed by his feelings from last Christmas, but he is unsure of what to do...especially when he comes face to face with Danny again, the first time in a year.This took a long time for me to write, re-write, and those waiting for the entire year it took (a year of maybes for myself), I hope this is at least somewhat worth it.





	A Year of Maybe

The injury wasn’t as bad as they originally thought, but it would put a hold on things, and it was taking a lot longer than he would have liked to hear back from the schools that he applied to, a choice needing to be made by the first of the year, though he awaited a letter that would tell him one way or the other.

And at once it was like fate, two letters arrived in the small mailbox outside of his apartment, the home he would have to leave soon. He held the letters in his hand, looking at both, but not opening either. He didn’t know what the right choice was, but at the same time he didn’t have all the information he needed without opening them. It was right there in front of him, but all he could do was flip a coin over and over.

Maybe he would open this one, or maybe he would open the other.

Maybe.  
~~

Danny was going to pick him up from the airport. He let that thought sink in for a moment, not sure whether he should be happy or if there should be some tinge of sadness there. The fact that he was going to see Danny for the first time in several months was great, made him nervous, caused him to check his hair constantly to make sure no strands were out of place. He wanted to look his best, even if Danny wasn’t the kind of person that cared about how perfect someone’s hair was. It mattered to Dash, though. His sadness came from the fact that, like most holiday seasons, his parents weren’t around. This was a pretty common practice in Dash’s home, and while he had gotten used to it, there was always a moment where he felt he’d somehow missed out on something that the other kids got to experience.

When the Fentons had been kind enough to invite him to their home for Christmas, he jumped at the chance. A summer internship at a hospital had killed any opportunity to hang out with Danny over the summer, their spring break also on different weeks. They graduated from different universities, not able to visit before new opportunities opened up. It had been nearly a year since he saw Danny face to face, after that last Christmas, after the time they got to spend together. Frequent calls were nice, and the two of them certainly talked a great deal, at least a few times a week, but honestly, there was something there, Dash felt it, but their conversations rarely went back to that Christmas.

At Dash’s prodding, Danny finally reached out to Sam and Tucker for the first time in years, and most of their conversations were about the rekindling friendship that had been lost to stress, depression, and fame. It wasn’t that Dash didn’t like hearing about the trio’s exploits, and in fact it had reminded him of the old days in high school, though that narrative had played out for him. He was no longer the jock that made fun of the three of them. He was an outsider looking in, knowing that he was special to Danny in some way, but that feeling ill-defined. He always felt like Danny would try to loop him in, but his mind never felt connect, that he needed to push that idea way.

“I’m glad that I’m going to get to see you,” Danny had said over the phone.

“I’m...I’m really looking forward to it, Fenton.”

Dash recalled the conversation vividly. He wanted to call him Danny, something that so often he felt was unwarranted from him, that somehow Danny’s name wasn’t his to say, that he hadn’t earned it in some way. This would frustrate Dash to no end. At what point would he stop feeling guilt for what he’d done in the past and start taking ownership of how he felt in the present? Perhaps he couldn’t admit it to himself either, that nagging, persistent feeling in the back of his mind, that before he was smitten with Danny Phantom, he often removed Danny Fenton from the situation even after it was revealed that the two were one in the same. Then Dash saw him alone last Christmas, saw what fame had done to the kid he went to highschool with. He saw Danny Fenton for the first time. He couldn’t stop thinking about talking to him in the bar, a place he is still unhappy to call his home away from home during breaks, now probably going to be a place he worked until the start of his graduate program, if he even got in. Dash recalled telling him that Danny Fenton had come first, and that Danny Fenton should stay first. Now Dash had trouble seeing who he was, in spite of everything. Now his feelings were starting to complicate a friendship he was so glad to have.

_You like him. You want to be with him._

Dash started to blush on the plane, not even because of anything said, simply because of what his mind so obviously wanted. It’s not like he hadn’t been with other guys, though none he would consider anything other than trysts. He’d even had a few moments with Danny, but Dash could truly say that he had never experienced this feeling that welled up in his chest every time he thought about Danny without his shirt on. He dwelled on the sounds of his sneezes due to the ghastly flu he had. The only word Dash could find to explain his behavior was foolish. Before he felt so confident, being the more experienced person during last Christmas break, but now, he had these feelings, and he couldn’t find anything to do with them. Where had the confidence gone that he so proudly showed a year ago? Dash was not the kind of person to choke, and yet here he was, sitting on the plane, unsure of how he could tell this guy he used to bully in school that he wanted to date him, hold his hand, take him to see a movie, and buy him chinese food when all the other restaurants were closed on Christmas Eve. He wanted Danny there when he opened those letters. He wanted Danny there when he couldn’t make a decision that could ultimately change the entire course of his life. Why now? Why Danny Fenton?

Since Danny’s friendships grew again, there had been no mention of the two of them being together, only that their dynamic had changed. Why did he care so much? Why was the plane landing so soon? Why had he agreed to let Danny pick him up from the airport? All of these question were slowly starting to drive him mad because he didn’t really have an answer for any of them, even the ones that were scientifically answerable. Dash felt himself eagerly wishing to board another plane, back to the small apartment where the lease was about to run dry, at least being alone there would allow him to sulk in privacy, though his house being empty, he could do that here, too. His mind, thoughts, so wrapped up in everything that was happening he didn’t even realize that he had picked up his bag from the baggage claim, that he was standing outside in the freezing cold waiting for a car to pick him up, and he certainly wasn’t ready for the moment a hand tapped him on the shoulder. He nearly lost his sneakers he jumped so high.

“Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Danny said, a grin on his face. “Usually people are entitled to a scare on Halloween. Maybe I’m always entitled to them though?”

Dash picked up the bag he dropped, his heart beating quickly, wondering all at once if he should just blurt out what he wanted to say, to get it over with, while they were alone, but then there would be the drive all the way into town should things go poorly, and then he would have nowhere to go for Christmas, and it was awfully kind for the Fentons to invite him over for the holidays. 

“Why are you just staring at me like that?” Danny asked with a queer look on his face.

“I’m not staring at you, Fenton. I’m staring past you, duh.”

Danny’s face didn’t change very much, though he did shrug his shoulders, nonchalantly adding, “If you say so, Dash.”

Danny grabbed Dash’s bag, put it in the trunk, and for a moment, Dash was left wondering what to do next. It felt like that was all he could do, sit and wonder what his play should be. He could read the signs, throw the passes, learn all the plays he needed, but he was paralyzed here, in the cold, looking at this guy put his bag in the trunk of his car. His mind reminded him of the last play, his last season in undergrad, the way his knee gave out because he didn’t make a decision fast enough.

“My parents are having a little cocktail party tonight. You’re more than welcome to come with me,” Danny said, forcing Dash out of his head for a moment.

“I’d love to,” Dash blurted out with such force that he had to open the back passenger side door to throw his bookbag in, lowering his body more than necessary to hid his face, red and angered with how childish he was being.

When he sat in the seat next to Danny, the young superhero turned the car on, put the heated seats to full, and started to pull out of the airport terminal parking and onto the main highway. Most of the roads had been cleared and salted already, though this winter had been even more brutal than the last.

“Can you believe it’s been a year since we saw each other. It really feels like forever,” Danny said, turning the radio down.

“I know. You’re looking good, Fenton. You’re actually smiling. Last time I saw you, I think I had to fight you just to get you to perk up.”

“It’s been a lot of work, but I’m finally feeling like myself again. I guess I have you to thank for a lot of that.”

“Nonsense. I just pushed you along a little bit. You did all the work,” Dash said, his heartbeat slowing, his words coming out the way he actually wanted, and for a moment his brain staying out of his way.

The car ride was filled with idle chit-chat, mostly about grad school, graduating from undergrad, and their next steps. Dash explained to Danny that he’d applied to three programs for Sports Medicine and was waiting to hear back from them, needing a year off before resuming school, and Danny had started a PhD program for Chemistry thanks to his standardized test scores. He wanted to help make new combustion fuels for space shuttles and exploration. Both of them took a minute to laugh at how far they’d come since high school. Both of them had struggled with simple tasks back then, but now both had far reaching goals. It was amazing what a few years could do.

“Tucker and Sam are going to be at the get together tonight. You’ll get to fully re-introduce yourself,” Danny said.

Dash felt his heart start to race again, though this time the anxiety seemed to center itself in his gut, not his heart. He couldn’t place it, but the idea of having to re-introduce himself felt odd, cold, like he was somehow a different person than he was before. The chance of them forgetting him were very unlikely, and the nature of the statement took Dash a few moments to recover from. Sure, he had changed, but he was still Dash Baxter. Did Danny see him as someone completely different than the boy he used to be?

“I mean, they know who I am.”

“Well, yeah, but you guys haven’t talked in a long time.”

“Maybe I should just skip the cocktail party tonight. I’m pretty tired anyway, and I’m not sure that meeting up with the three of you my first night is such a great idea. I mean, I’m sure you’ll want to spend some time with them and your family. We have three weeks to meet up,” Dash said, feeling somewhat defeated, embarrassed, and obviously flustered.

The car was quiet for a small portion of time, Dash looking out the window and Danny keeping a look forward, the road getting a bit more hazardous as snow started to fall again. The wipers made a flat scraping noise across the windshield as small patches of snow started to stick.

“You know I want you there, right?” Danny asked.

Dash remained quiet, a sort of fear gathering where the anxiety began to fade, that he would end up at this party, looked down upon as he had looked down upon them. He wasn’t really tired, but he could press the lie a little more if he needed. It was a good, non-specific symptom of mental stress. Perhaps Danny would….

“You’ve been weird since you arrived. It hasn’t been like this when we were talking on the phone. I didn’t do something wrong the last time we talked, did I?” Danny asked rather bluntly.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just feeling anxious. I always do around the holidays,” Dash tried to explain away. Over the year he didn’t really tell Danny about his knee injury, hadn’t mentioned the letters that caused him such paranoia, and had instead wanted Danny to focus on himself in their conversations. He didn’t know if that had been the right course of action, but it was the one he had taken.

“You didn’t seem anxious last Christmas?”

Dash laughed, “Because I had a mission to accomplish.”

“You can talk to me, Dash. I’m starting to feel like the roles have reversed a little bit. Is there something you need to say?” 

Dash couldn’t tell if Danny had gained some new ability, empathic or what, but it seemed like now was the best time to ask. Now was the time to say that Dash was tired of phone calls only about their friends and not about each other, tired of not getting to talk about Danny as more to him, tired of hiding how he felt and holding onto stress without letting anyone know how he…..

“So?” Danny asked again after a prolonged silence.

“I can’t think of anything, Fenton.”

As Danny turned the radio up, claiming half-heartedly that the song was one he liked, Dash felt his utter defeat raise with the volume bar on the display of the radio. With each tick up, he knew that his chance to have a conversation with Danny was diminishing. 

Danny dropped him off at the stoop of his house, helped him with his bag, and Dash noticed him look up at the oddity of it. Lights adorned all the other houses, religious and secular images placed haphazardly in the windows nearby, but Dash’s house didn’t have any light, no tree, just darkened windows and a mailbox overstuffed.

“This is me,” Dash said. He’d never let Danny come to his place last Christmas, mostly because of this, that no one was home and Danny needed to be with family that loved him.

“I hope that you come to the party,” Danny said, “though I’m not gonna force it.”

‘I’ll see what I can do, Fenton. If anything, I’ll be there for Christmas.”

Danny gave him a weak smile, a longing on his face that Dash wanted so badly to conquer, but he couldn’t do it. All that happened was shaking hands and the need to go to the restroom. He pulled the keys out of his jacket pocket, mixed with an old gum wrapper, receipt for the pack of gum, and the tangled mess of a set of headphones. 

Danny waited. Dash turned around when the door was opened and waved to him, though even then, Danny waited for a few more seconds before waving back and pulling away. Shutting the door behind him, Dash wandered to the thermostat and turned the heat on, rubbing his hands together afterwards, seeing his breath in the hallway of the empty house. He dragged his bag to the second floor, opened the door of his room and took in the musty smell. He hadn’t been home since last Christmas. His sheets were still the same, and he wondered if his parents had even taken the time to change them since he left. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, no, far from it, but that they had become more interested in themselves since he had moved away to school, free to do what they wanted. Before, Dash liked having the house to himself while his parents migrated to a warmer climate for the holidays, but the dusty trophies on his wall, the plaques congratulating him on his accomplishments on the college football team, all of these amounted to a lonely existence in this moment. Even Pooky got to go on vacation with his parents.

He removed the two letters from the backpack on his shoulders and placed them on the dust covered dresser in front of him. One of them was from his top choice school, letting him know whether or not he was accepted, and the other was from the National Football League. There had been a rumor that he would be drafted after college, but he hadn’t paid much attention, focusing more on life beyond football and tired of its obligation, though the money, the fame, he couldn’t lie, had attracted him to the idea. The letter would state whether the team that wanted to draft him would wait until next season so he could recover from his injury, or if they would pass him up in favor of someone healthier. Before, he had known what he wanted, but looking at the two letters again, he felt a sort of split in himself. An overwhelming desire to sit in the cold house by himself extended further than he would have liked.

_You know I want you there._

This echoed in his head from the car. Despite his trepidation, Dash pulled his suit out of his bag, put it in the hall bathroom and turned the hot water on to steam the wrinkles free from the cloth. He would go to the party, or at least he thought he would go, probably standing outside the house before turning around and returning home. At least then he could say that he tried. At least then he could pretend he had made one important choice today.

~~

He held his dress shoes in his right hand, the heavy snow boots helping him through the drifts that had been forced onto the sidewalks by the snowplows. The Fentons’ house was right in front of him, and just as he had assumed, he stood at the end of the street just gazing at it, wondering if this was the right course of action, hoping that some sign would present itself, but none did. He would have to make this choice on his own, and how well he was doing making decisions for himself.

“Cold feet?” a young woman said from behind him with a chuckle, her voice familiar and all at once mocking and loving. 

Dash turned to his right to see Jazz Fenton holding two bags of ice, her cocktail dress only an inch above the snow bank. He instinctively took the bags from her, or at least tried to, her only offering one to him. She assured him that she could handle both but wanted to force his hand in coming to the party. Jazz took the time to point out that his other hand was filled with a pair of shoes. He rolled his eyes.

“What? You looked like you were going to bail at any second. I didn’t really want to give you that option, if I could.”

“I’m starting to see why Danny usually called you nosey when we were kids,” Dash said quickly.

“Oh, because I have a keen sense and seemingly handle most situations with unwavering adaptability? I’ll take it as a compliment. And who’s to say that you aren’t still a kid, Dash Baxter?”

“Aren’t you cold, Jazz?”

“Warm enough to lecture you for a few more minutes if I have to.”

Taking her warning very seriously, Dash started moving towards the Fentons’ house, knowing that whatever squabble would arise would ultimately lead to her victory. Dash would admit to anyone that Jazz Fenton was a force he feared in this world.

“You know when Danny went to pick you up he couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face, yet he’s been a little down since the encounter. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to rough you up.”

“He tell you about it?”

“No. Do you want to?”

The paused again, snow clinging to their coats, hair, lashes. She stood, waiting, expectantly, but it took him a moment to start. He would open his mouth, but when nothing came out he would just close it again, words rolling in the back of the throat but none of them quite reaching the world. Dash focused on her face, the smooth lines, her posture, non-threatening and open. She looked like she wanted to listen, and not just for Danny’s sake, but for his own as well. After he failed to start, yet again, she grabbed the bag of ice back from him.  
“It’s pretty funny that the one thing we ran out of was ice, isn’t it?” She said with a laugh, “and yet they wouldn’t just use the snow piling up in our backyard. They had to go to the store and buy something new.”

She started to walk away from him. Again, he sensed it, not because of her desire to get him to talk, to guilt him, but to help him understand, to show him that if he didn’t feel he could come to the party, that it wasn’t his fault.

“I think I’m in love with your brother,” Dash said.

“So, act like you’re ten and ignore him. Makes sense to me,” Jazz said, turning slightly to look at him again, Her right eyebrow cocked, a smile spread on her lips. 

“I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t know what we are, where we are, what I want, what he wants,” Dash just streamed.

“Have you asked him?”

“No. I can’t. I didn’t want to ruin his break from school.”

“That’s good. Choose for him.”

Dash took a step towards Jazz, towards the house, maybe even towards Danny. His shoe stuck in a bit of slush, he looked away before saying, “I’m afraid of what they’ll think.”

“Admittedly, I didn’t even consider you an option until a year ago, and I saw what you were like with him. Where did that go? When did you start worrying about what we would think, what they would think?” Jazz said, fully aware of who he was talking about.

“I don’t know,” he found himself shouting at her, but she didn’t move, not a inch.

“What are you so mad about?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, calmly. He realized he was mad, but he knew where to place the blame.

Jazz handed him the bag of ice again. She didn’t say anything after that. She grabbed his hand, forcing him to place the dress shoes under his arm that held the ice, leading him along, though instead of making him feel childish, he felt like he was making a move in the right direction. Last year, Danny thought he had to do it all alone, that it was the right course of action to divert fame and attention, to save his friends and family from whatever he believed he’d become since revealing himself to the world. Danny needed a push. Dash realized that maybe, in this moment, what he required was a pull.

They walked up the steps and Jazz pushed the door open, a swell of warm air, laughter, and the like sweeping out into the cold, though none of it truly lost to the empty street. She let go of his hand and stepped inside, leaving him in the cold with the bag of ice and dress shoes under his arm. She didn’t shut the door behind her.

~~

He moved through people, the ice dripping slightly now that it was met with a much higher temperature. Dash lifted the 20 pound bag into the cooler, and Jazz used a knife to slash the bottom, the contents running out of the bag in one fluid motion before crashing into the bottom. She put the knife away before people entered into the kitchen.

“Safety first,” she reminded him, something he found humorous.

“You seem pretty proficient with that,” Dash joked.

“Don’t make me show you how proficient,” she responded.

“Making some hefty threats already.”

“Let’s just remember who had a crush on me when they were fifteen and then we can talk about real threats,” Jazz said as she skated past him, bumping into his shoulder.

Dash nearly fell over. A part of him had forgotten that fact, and another part of him had blocked it from his memory. It was one of the more embarrassing things he could recall from his childhood, and a part of him was a little salty she brought it up, though he was even more upset that he couldn’t think of something to quip back at her. It didn’t even matter because she was gone at that point, leaving him with a few bottles of liquor and plenty of mixers. He decided that it would help.

The solo cup sweated just about as much as he did, wondering when Danny or Sam or Tucker would notice him standing around, talking to adults he didn’t know, expressing his plans for a medical degree despite nearly failing high school all those years ago.

“So long as you can throw a ball, they’ll give you plenty of money,” Dash joked at his own expense, though he knew that this wasn’t untrue in the slightest. His chances of getting into college at the end of high school were pretty low, and it took a lot of growing up to get to where he was going by next September. He’d always been the dumb jock, meathead, etc., but here he was keeping up with conversations, expressing his interests outside of sports, and it felt good. Maybe opening the school letter was more important to him than the NFL letter. As annoyed as he was with what Danny had said, ‘re-introducing himself,’ he couldn’t help but understand exactly why Danny had said it. 

“Dash Baxter, Danny said that you wouldn’t be able to attend our little get together,” Maddie Fenton said as she wrapped him in a hug. She was wearing a blue dress, hair full, certainly going along with her normal jumpsuit aesthetic, just in the formal dinner party fair.

Dash quickly expressed his gratitude at being invited along, and gave Jack Fenton a handshake when he walked over to greet him. The three of them talked for a moment, him relating the same thing that he had to everyone in the party, that he graduated, took a year off, was waiting to hear back from the schools he applied to, that he was interested in keeping players safe, healthy, and in the game for as long as he could. It felt natural to talk about going to Medical School.

“Well, if you ever need any help from us, just let us know, “Jack said.

“Oh, I didn’t realize that you were doctors in the MD sense,” Dash said.

“We aren’t!” Jack shouted before screaming the name of one of his friends and wandering off towards new people. 

“Don’t mind him, dear. Jack just gets a little ahead of himself,” Maddie said as she gave him a small pat on the shoulder, then a gentle squeeze. She assured him that they would talk soon, and she explained how much she looked forward to seeing him on Christmas.

And yet again, he was left alone in a crowd of people, none of them familiar to him, nagging himself that a part of him wished people recognized him the way that people recognized him in college, yet simultaneously wanting to remain hidden.

“Hey, aren’t you that kid that passed up a starting quarterback position with the Seattle Seahawks…”

“That’s not me,” Dash said. “I just have one of those faces.”

“Well damn, you sure look like him,” the stranger said before turning back to his date and talking about random football statistics.

Dash hated the swell of pride he felt, the color returning to his cheeks at being recognized. What was all at once beginning to feel natural, the idea of becoming a doctor, it now faded as thoughts of fans shouting his name in a huge stadium dawdled in his imagination. He could kick himself for wishing someone would recognize him. He didn’t know if he’d be able to reach his own face with how tight his knee had gotten in the cold.

~~

Dash poured a little too much vodka into the cup without enough soda water to compensate for the overestimation. His cheeks felt hot. The young man sat on the bottom step of the lab, the door having been closed but unlocked. He’d never been down there for any great length of time. He saw the ghost portal, the point of creation for Danny Phantom. Gadgets and building materials lined the walls and pieces of wires, nuts, and bolts scattered across the floor.

Several people had started asking him if he was the kid that was absent from the football draft because of an injury in his final game. He was starting to like the attention too much and decided to get away for a moment. Dash liked the low lit area, the soundproofed nature, and the smell of oil, something about it haunted him, but he wasn’t exactly sure what it was about the space that made him feel comfortable. Maybe it was because it was empty like his home. Maybe he was thinking that all of this had truly been a bad idea.

Seemingly, what he wanted was overshadowed by what other people knew about him, obviously that line blurring for him as well.

The door opened, shut quietly, and then a few steps started to come down the stairs, though Dash didn’t turn to see who it was, knowing that they were either trying to escape the party as well, or perhaps they were looking for him. There was no good answer.

“You’ve been dodging me all night,” Danny said.

“I assume Jazz told you what I said,” Dash responded, rather despondently.

“No, she didn’t. I’m glad that you can talk with her but can’t even seem to look at me.”

Dash didn’t say anything.

“I overheard some people talking about you. They said you were supposed to replace some quarterback in the NFL. Why didn’t you tell me about that? You didn’t even say that you had draft prospects,” Danny said.

“I don’t know, Fenton.”

“And that, all the sudden I’m ‘Fenton’ again? At least you called me Danny occasionally until about a month ago, now you’re trying to play some macho jerk again. What’s the deal, Dash?”

The door opened again, except this time Dash looked back, Jazz’s face peeking through the door as she said, “Danny, Mom was hoping that you could help her with one of the Christmas decorations on the top of the antenna. You’re the only one that can reach it.”

“Sure thing, Jazz,” Danny said before turning invisible, a small breeze of frigid air all that remained of his presence a moment ago.

“Should I keep the door open or are you going to sulk a little more?” Jazz asked, though when he didn’t respond, she realized that he was actually sulking.

She walked down some of the stairs, only closing the distance about halfway. The sound of her high heels clicked ever so slightly. He just kept looking at her, his eyes growing puffy and worn. Upon seeing his reaction, she walked the rest of the way down, a hand place gently on his shoulder. They didn’t speak; he just cried.

~~

Jazz walked through the basement door first, checking to make sure that no one was standing around. Both of them returned to the party, everyone none the wiser to their absence in time. 

“I think I’m going to go home,” Dash said, pointing towards the door, and as he turned around, he smacked square into one of the guest, the red solo cups they were holding crushed, and the contents splash all over their clothes.

“Oh, Dash…” Jazz said as she went to get paper towels from the kitchen.

Dash wiped some of the liquid that remained on his face before taking out the pocket square on his jacket and handing it to the young woman he completely soaked. The upset look, her dark black hair, pale face and flowing black dress led him to one quick conclusion as to who he happened upon. 

“Hi, Dash,” Sam Manson said, a sigh coming from her like he had never heard.

“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s fine,” she said, taking the pocket square and removing some of the liquid from her face and torso. Whatever she was drinking was pink, but the color of the dress hid most of it, though she would probably smell like cranberry juice and alcohol for the rest of the night.

“I’m sorry to laugh, but I watched that happen from over there, and it was hilarious,” Tucker Foley said as he walked over taking a picture of Sam with his phone. “You know I’m gonna have to post this to Facebook, right?”

“My, Tucker, how I wish you wouldn’t. By the way, say hi to Dash Baxter, would you. Wouldn’t want to be rude,” Sam replied with a bit of a sneer.

Tucker took a step back, looking Dash up and down and up again before grimacing slightly. Dash could see the door just behind his scowling face, but it was so far away, so out of reach he almost wanted to jump through one of the windows behind him just to get away from the two of them, nearly identical looks of disgust on their face.

“Funny bumping into you here,” Sam said with sneer, to the point that Dash was unable to figure out whether a part of her was actually happy to have run into him, though why she would have wanted that, he didn’t know.

“That’s not exactly the phrase I would use,” Dash tried to recover.

“Danny said you wouldn’t be making it,” Tucker said as he put his phone back in his pocket.

“And yet here I am, standing in front of the two of you…,” no confidence in his voice, dread mounting, “how are you guys doing?”

Neither seemed interested in answering him, though clearly he was trying. Both of them folded there arms at the same time, each cocking a hip on different sides, not really moving out of the way, but enough that Dash could now see the entire door. Jazz returned to the scene with a roll of paper towels and some water, she handed both to Sam, who in turned thanked her for taking the time to get them.

“So, what did I interrupt?” Jazz asked.

“We were just catching up,” Tucker said, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

“Danny was telling us about how Dash wasn’t going to be here, and yet, here he is. He seemed rather upset you weren’t coming,” Sam replied. “And I’m doing well. I’ve started my own production company with some college friends. Our first film is going to be released in a few months at the Austin Film Festival.”

“That’s, wow, that’s really impressive,” Dash sputtered out before downing the rest of the drink in his hand, or what was left of it after the collision.

“I just finished work on a new security app. It’s already sold a million copies,” Tucker said, he showed the icon on his phone, a relatively spartan design, and then he took the time to thumb through some of the applications capabilities.

“And to think, I’m just a high school guidance counselor,” Jazz lamented.

“No, but that’s really important. If it hadn’t been for our guidance counselor, I never would have completed my scholarship reports,” Dash pointed out. “Probably wouldn’t have finished college either.”

“Football certainly helped,” Tucker said with no remorse.

“Yeah, that full ride must have been hard,” Sam interjected. “So, what is it that you’re doing now?”

“Well, I start a bartending job at the start of next month,” Dash said.

Tucker and Sam stifled a little bit of laughter while Jazz pushed past them making some space.

“I think you had to head out, didn’t you Dash?” Jazz said, trying her best, and rather obviously, to save him from whatever else could potentially happen next. 

“It was nice catching up with the two of you,” Dash said as he followed after Jazz. Though he couldn’t make out in the swell of the party what it was that they said after he left, he assumed that when their laughing didn’t subside, it probably had something to do with him. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t leave,” Jazz said as he opened the door, “you know, maybe not without saying goodbye to everyone.”

“I think I’ve done enough damage tonight. I have a feeling Christmas isn’t going to be the best idea anymore.”

“Dash, a few mistakes a revoked invitation does not make. While I know a part of what’s bothering you, it seems like you have something else going on. Maybe your best option would be to open up instead of carrying this with you. Maybe there’s someone that you should say goodbye to,” Jazz attempted to state again.

~~

“You’re really lucky I can fly,” Danny said as he landed on the roof, not too far away from the place he slipped when Dash scared him coming through the hatch in the attic.

“I guess everyone is entitled to a good scare on Halloween.”

“It’s December, Dash.”

“Still.”

“Yeah, still,” Danny said with a chuckle.

Dash took a few steps closer to Danny, though they were quite perilous, as each step came with some chunks of snow and ice falling from the side of the roof, the obvious spot where the roof started to curve down was hazy at best.

“I”m going to go, but I wanted to say goodbye first.”

“I have to say, I’m a little surprised you didn’t just leave,” Danny said, a half smile on his face, clearly happy that he was up here.

“Well, I wanted to, but Jazz convinced me to come up here.”

“Now I’ve got to thank Jazz for being nosey…thanks for that,” Danny said with a laugh, taking a step closer to Dash as well.

“I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk to you, Danny. I’ve just, I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I have some things to decide on, and it just all came out on you. That wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have let that happen to you.”

“You called me Danny…”

“Yeah, I called you Danny because I’ve wanted to since I saw you at the airport. I’ve wanted to give you a big hug, kiss your cheek, tell you that I missed you, but instead, I feel like I’m two people, stuck in between what I want and what...well, what I want.”

“You wanted to give me a kiss on the cheek?”

“And tell you that I like you, that I like hearing you on the phone, that I wait for your calls, but I want to talk about us, about last Christmas, about what you’re plans are for the future, wondering maybe if I can be in them. Then I think it’s weird to say, and then I think about choices I have to make, and…”

“Stop,” Danny said. “So, the reason you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder and being weird is because you like me? So what, you act like we’re in fifth grade and you ignore me?”

“Jazz said the same thing.”

“First of all, please stop making me feel so related to Jazz, and second, you told Jazz this before you told me?”

“She coaxed it out of me,” Dash said, blushing though blaming it on the cold.

“I’ll give you that. She’s gotten really good since her promotion.”

“Like, scary good. You Fentons really learn your skill sets well.”

Danny took another step forward, looking down slightly, obviously a little embarrassed before saying, “I’ve really liked our chats too, and I can’t stop thinking about last Christmas. I don’t think it’s weird Dash, it’s...it’s actually a relief. It felt like every time I tried to bring it up, we would get sidetracked about what Tucker and Sam were up to, or you’d change the subject to schools I’d gotten into.”

“What? No, that’s not how it went down at all.”

“Dash, I asked you if I could come visit you and you told me that you had a case of Swine Flu, and then you asked me about my Chemistry homework.”

“I did?”

“Eventually, I stopped talking about it because I thought you wanted to.”

Dash started to recall the conversations, how he did exactly that, that Danny had offered to visit several times, but he’d often suggest alternate actions, that he was busy. There were always football games, tests, and suddenly, he wondered, deep down, if he was ultimate just afraid of this, that he was afraid of how he was starting to feel, that he was just living a year of maybes, constantly faltering on choices, constantly afraid to make a decision. School or football, never time to think about Danny other than something far in the distance, an unobtainable goal.

“I really did that?”

“Yeah,” Danny said, “but I’m really glad that you told me, finally, how you were feeling.”

It was the snow, or maybe the way he sidestepped, but when the hatch from the attic opened again, Sam and Tucker poking their heads through to see if Danny needed something, Dash’s concentration on Danny was broken, startled as he stepped away from the hole in the ceiling.

“Dash!”

~~

The scream hadn’t been very long. Jazz had been throwing out a bag of trash when Dash landed just to the right of her, a pile of snow from the roof coming with him and half burying him. When she looked up, she saw Danny’s head over the side of the roof, Sam and Tucker screaming that they didn’t mean to kill Dash.

“Am I dead?” Dash finally asked.

“I don’t think fate has been that kind to you,” Jazz said, as she helped him to brush some of the snow from his body. He had a little cut above his head, and it looks like his wrist was swollen, but other than that, upon first inspection, she couldn’t see anything particularly wrong with him.

“I want to stand up, but is that a thing you do when you fall off a roof?”

“I can honestly say I’ve never fallen off a roof before,” Jazz said as she recounted several crazy things she had done in her travels with the family she had to call her own.

Danny landed relatively close to Dash, though it took him a moment before he actually bent down to check on him, taking a moment to look up and calculate just how far it was he had fallen. Probably about three stories, though it looked like much of the snow had broken his fall, some old trash bags also helping to cushion the landing.

“Well, that’s certainly a way to get away after telling someone some news,” Danny said while he made sure Dash was okay.

“Yes, you finally told him you love him,” Jazz said clapping her hands.

“Love me?” Danny said.

Dash and Danny turned bright red at the exact same moment, Tucker and Sam running out the back door, the sounds of the party still raging on inside as the older adults got far drunker than they did throughout the rest of the year.

“You told Jazz you love me?” Danny half shouted the first half, half whispered the second.

“Oh,” Sam said, “and then we tried to kill him.”

“We literally killed a moment,” Tucker said. “It’s good irony though.”

“I didn’t tell him I love him,” Dash said, “but I’d really appreciate if someone could beat me to death with one of the trash can lids.”

~~

He had to hold still as the doctor sutured the gash in his forehead, though the cut wasn’t too deep, it was still long enough to warrant stitches. He was told it would scar. The X-ray of his knee came back, it looked like the injury was healing nicely, not exacerbated by the fall. A general scan of fluids showed that there was no internal bleeding, though the doctor did say there was a chance he had a small concussion, though signs showed that at worse it would be a mild one. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz sat just outside of the room while Danny went  
to the children’s ward to meet with kids for the holidays, something he usually did closer to Christmas, but while they were here….

The doctor cleared him to leave after another hour of observation, time in the emergency room equating to about four hours. It was roughly 2AM now, the party at the Fentons’ house over, hopefully...according to Jazz.

“We’re really sorry Dash,” Sam said when they were allowed to enter the room.

Jazz remained behind, given them a few minutes to themselves while she wandered off to find Danny.

“Yeah, we don’t like you very much, but we didn’t want you to fall off a roof,” Tucker said. “I mean, maybe in high school I kind of hoped for it a few days but…”

“Tucker, now might not be the time to bring that up,” Sam interrupted.

“It’s okay. I probably deserve it,” Dash said.

“I’m not going to pretend that I like you, Dash, at least not yet. You made high school a pretty terrible experience for us,” Sam said matter-of-factly. “That’s gonna take time to get over.”

“And I can’t say that I’m too excited about the fact that Danny doesn’t stop talking about you. He’s always telling us about something you two talked about,” Tucker added.

“But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to give you a chance.”

“We want our friend to be happy. And if that means giving you a shot, I guess that’s what we’ve got to do.”

Dash sat up, thanking the two of them. The both nodded, deciding it best to leave the room when Danny came back, entering to check on Dash. Dash looked around, seemingly wanting to run away again, yet there was nowhere to go. Unfortunately for him, he was still hooked up to all the machines. Too much would need to be ripped off before he could run away. His eyes just glanced away when Danny stood at the foot of the bed.

“I can’t believe you fell off my roof. You’re not going to sue us, are you?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but that’s actually a pretty good idea,” Dash said with a bit of a snort, eyes meeting Danny’s, finally.

Danny moved to the side of the bed, sitting in an ugly chair, saggy in the middle, the material long worn and needing a great deal of repair. The difference in height between the two of them was rather staggering given their current positions. Dash almost had to lean over the bed to see Danny. The two stifled a little laugh at the awkwardness of the entire situation. Everything that had happened, and it had only been a day. The laughing slowly dying down, the room quiet for a moment, only the sound of the heart rate monitor making noise, and a gentle hum from the lights overhead.

“So you love me.”

“Oh my god…”

The monitor beeped a great deal faster.

~~

Danny picked the letters up, put them behind his back, and told Dash that the only way to do this was to just pick one. His apprehension for such a task continued to bubble, but Dash eventually picked the envelope in Danny’s left hand. The young superhero handed the letter over, the one from the NFL. 

Dash looked at it for a long time, sitting down on the bed, surrounded by the trophies, plaques, receipt of scholarship that his parents had framed and put on the wall. Was this him, enough to keep playing, money and fame? 

“Last year, you told me that Danny Fenton came before Danny Phantom, and that the only way I could start living my life again was to put Danny Fenton first. That stuck with me. And trust me, as a guy that has to be two people all the time, I’m not saying that I know exactly what you’re going through, but I have an idea.”

“A part of me just wishes it was my only option, but I have another envelope to open.”

“Would it be so terrible if that one was a rejection? At least then your mind might be off of it?”

Dash didn’t want to admit that if the envelope said that he was being passed on, the blow to everything he had worked on up to that point in his life would seem relatively meaningless. The white streak in Danny’s hair reminded Dash of something very important, something that he had to focus on despite how difficult it is in all of us.

“We are all so many people, aren’t we?” Dash asked.

“You have to reconcile both parts of yourself. All parts, really. You were holding an aspect of yourself back, and then you told me, and now look where we are. I’m getting to sit here, in your room, watching you make an important decision about your life. Whatever choice you make, I’m proud to be here with you, that you’d let me be here with you.”

Dash placed the unopened envelope on his bed, requested the other envelope from Danny, and proceeded to open that one instead. He ripped the end of the envelope open, pulled the letter outside and sat for a moment, reading the contents. When he just kept going over it, Danny walked over, sat beside him, and started to read over his shoulder.

“I got in,” Dash said, looking at the acceptance letter to his top choice for medical school.

“What about the other one?”

“Who cares! I got into the program. I didn’t think in a million years I’d get into this program. You know how long I studied for the MCAT? Do you know how hard that internship over the summer was? I got in, I got…”

His face grabbed, Dash was made helpless but the allure of Danny’s lips, pressed against his, the gentle exhale through his nose, the warm air falling on his cheeks, a hand behind his neck. Danny pulled back, slightly, the tips of their noses not even a millimeter away. Dash hesitated for a moment, feeling, for the first time, balance between the two of them. A single moment of pure consciousness.

“This is us,” he said. 

“I think so,” Danny replied.

Dash moved his face forward, connecting with Danny’s lips again, his tongue slipping into Danny’s mouth, the two of them pushing away from each other, both with hot faces, both rubbing their bottom lip of a little saliva left over. Dash’s heart was racing enough that he felt it necessary to put his hand on his chest.

“I think I love you, too.”

“That’s really weird, Fenton. We’ve only been together once over the course of the year,” Dash said.

Danny nearly clotheslined him, both of them laying back on the bed, Dash, the small of his back pressed on the cold sheets, head turned towards Danny, the other stomach down, a single eye gazing at him, the other hidden by the shape of his face and the comforter.

“I think it’s weird, too. But I don’t mind it. My life has always been a little strange and unusual.”

“I’d like to learn as much about it as I can.”

“Oh, and one last thing?”

“Name it.”

“You aren’t allowed to call me Fenton anymore.”

“You got it, Danny.”

~~ 

His breathing was deep, a petit, wispy snore just at the end. Dash didn’t know what time they fell asleep, but he liked this. Danny’s body was warm, but his breath slightly cold, a quirk he was already used to. The quaff of hair messy, out of place, nothing sensual to cause such a change, just falling asleep, waking up in the morning.

He still had twenty days before he flew back home to his apartment where the lease would soon be over, before he needed to pack up his things and move home before he started school again. Dash would lie and say he wasn’t scared when people asked, but he told Danny the truth right before they fell asleep the night before, only an hour after opening the acceptance letter. Danny Fenton hugged him tightly and didn’t say a word. They were just there, together, and for now it was more than enough. He’d leave questions until he only had nineteen days left. Today was about Christmas shopping at the mall, holiday traditions, and waking his boyfriend up in time to take him out for breakfast.

He liked the sound of that: boyfriend.


End file.
